Gettin Dirty

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90gDreams

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So been planning to do the dry rock bottled bacteria thing that seems to be the norm now. I thankfully? didn't get clowns as planned this weekend and broke down today. Getting some dirty nasty pest infected florida live rock & sand shipped in Wednesday to get this party started the way I remember it. Found myself just sitting around Sunday night pricing "clean chaeto", copepod cultures, coraline algae in a bottle and just couldn't do it. I miss all the weird stuff too much. Hopefully score a sump monster or two.

Plan to dump in the dr. Tim's one and only I have sitting around to see how fast I can get through the cycle or if it avoids any real spike at all, not that it matters with a fish fishless cycle anyways.

Figured I'd throw some pictures up of the setup as is. The new canopy needs stain and poly to match the old stand. Feels good to back in after years of carrying around and empty tank and stand.
 

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Got the rock yesterday pretty nice stuff. Came with free LE Pastel Halimeda and some clam/scallop/mollusks on every rock. Also a fairly bland Gorgonian that handled shipping like a champ.20210203_124413.jpg20210203_123710.jpg20210203_124120.jpg
 
Awesome and welcome back to the hobby....my first reef tank started with a lot of rock like that shipped semi wet in paper with all the macro growing. I definitely had some monsters from that but also got lot of cool sponges and tube worms etc...
 
AWarnick said:
Awesome and welcome back to the hobby....my first reef tank started with a lot of rock like that shipped semi wet in paper with all the macro growing. I definitely had some monsters from that but also got lot of cool sponges and tube worms etc...
Click to expand...

Yeah I started with a few pieces of Fiji and some base rock in a 29g then just added mostly base or "live" waterbathed base rock as time went on and moved to a 55 and 90g.
 
civics14 said:
You’re brave. I dealt with so much pest that made the hobby so stressful for me that I would never use live rock again. I do miss some of the cool stuff tho.
Click to expand...

So far so good... no tell tale clicks or pops of mantis or pistols. I was sort of hoping to score one to put in the sump. I know there are a few welks that I'll need to fish out. There was a dead crab of some kind, had black tip pincers so no beuno whatever it was. Hopefully no more of them. I remember tearing my 29g apart for hours trying to snatch a big ass gorilla crab back in the day.

I was trying to do the dry rock cycle thing but it just felt so boring. As long my future Tang enjoys caulerpa there should be no regrets.
 
One thing I wish I had but didn't get with my TBS rock was a mantis - I had several of the very small pistol shrimp but no mantis.

It sounds like you will sump anything harmful - if you have any unwanted critters (other than the whelks - I hate those things) - I'd be happy to throw just about anything in with my toadfish.

Maybe your mantis will rid you of those whelks
 
I've often thought about setting up a system and only getting that kind of rock just to see what I get with it. I remember setting up systems using this type of rock and staying up late with a flashlight just to see what the heck I actually got - good and bad.
 
NanCrab said:
Are these bad?
Click to expand...
Short answer of it.. yes.
Longer answer, yes, very much so..


There are two main types, smashers and slashers, the latter is the more rare of the two.

Usually you know they are there from the tale tale clicking sound, it's them breaking shells open to eat the goodies inside. I've seen anecdotal evidence of them breaking peoples fingers and even walls of the aquarium. Known to kill fish and whatever else they can manage to smack.

Such a shame. Peacock Mantis are beautiful.

Fun fact, have the fastest appendage movement of any animal in the world and amazing vision.
 
drnecropolis said:
Short answer of it.. yes.
Longer answer, yes, very much so..


There are two main types, smashers and slashers, the latter is the more rare of the two.

Usually you know they are there from the tale tale clicking sound, it's them breaking shells open to eat the goodies inside. I've seen anecdotal evidence of them breaking peoples fingers and even walls of the aquarium. Known to kill fish and whatever else they can manage to smack.

Such a shame. Peacock Mantis are beautiful.

Fun fact, have the fastest appendage movement of any animal in the world and amazing vision.
Click to expand...
Wow that’s crazy! How will you get rid of it? This is why we used boring old dry rock. I don’t know enough even a year into the hobby to be able to manage real live rock!
 
NanCrab said:
Wow that’s crazy! How will you get rid of it? This is why we used boring old dry rock. I don’t know enough even a year into the hobby to be able to manage real live rock!
Click to expand...
Any time I had rock drop shipped or the one time if bought from TBS (the world's worst about MS) I would either dip the rock in peroxide or super salty water.

With peroxide, you would be amazed at what all shoots out of the rock.

If it was me, I would remove the rock it's in carefully and have someone on stand by with a net in case it shoots out..
 
I couldn't imagine spending money on live rock then nuking it with peroxide. All of the stuff is what makes it worth paying for. To each their own though and it would certainly cut down on headaches in a headache prone hobby.

90% sure this guy is a N. Wennerae so he is a crab and snail hunter that maxes out at about 3" I'd be shocked if this little guy is over an inch from what I've seen of it so far. I'm a bit torn on a few courses of action. One of four things will happen:

  1. Rehome to someone that wants a mantis tank
  2. Move to the sump and him scavenge the live rock rumble and chaeto, and hope he never gets sent to the big fish tank in the sky via the return pump impellers.
  3. Set up a dedicated 10g for him and throw the welks in there for his first few meals.
  4. This is a bit crazy, but just let him hang in the DT. Might sound crazy but it could be the ying to the yang of any gorilla crab that might be in there that hasn't been discovered yet. He is a smasher so my future fish should be pretty safe. Aside from nailing some occasional clean up crew snails he shouldn't really have an impact on anything. Keeping emeralds would be the biggest issue.
They are supposedly pretty smart for an invert, might try to feed it some krill tonight and start getting it comfortable eating off a stick. That'd come in handy for a whole host of reasons.
 
90gDreams said:
I couldn't imagine spending money on live rock then nuking it with peroxide. All of the stuff is what makes it worth paying for. To each their own though and it would certainly cut down on headaches in a headache prone hobby.

90% sure this guy is a N. Wennerae so he is a crab and snail hunter that maxes out at about 3" I'd be shocked if this little guy is over an inch from what I've seen of it so far. I'm a bit torn on a few courses of action. One of four things will happen:

  1. Rehome to someone that wants a mantis tank
  2. Move to the sump and him scavenge the live rock rumble and chaeto, and hope he never gets sent to the big fish tank in the sky via the return pump impellers.
  3. Set up a dedicated 10g for him and throw the welks in there for his first few meals.
  4. This is a bit crazy, but just let him hang in the DT. Might sound crazy but it could be the ying to the yang of any gorilla crab that might be in there that hasn't been discovered yet. He is a smasher so my future fish should be pretty safe. Aside from nailing some occasional clean up crew snails he shouldn't really have an impact on anything. Keeping emeralds would be the biggest issue.
They are supposedly pretty smart for an invert, might try to feed it some krill tonight and start getting it comfortable eating off a stick. That'd come in handy for a whole host of reasons.
Click to expand...
You'd be surprised how much will live through a peroxide dip.
 
90gDreams said:
I couldn't imagine spending money on live rock then nuking it with peroxide. All of the stuff is what makes it worth paying for. To each their own though and it would certainly cut down on headaches in a headache prone hobby.

90% sure this guy is a N. Wennerae so he is a crab and snail hunter that maxes out at about 3" I'd be shocked if this little guy is over an inch from what I've seen of it so far. I'm a bit torn on a few courses of action. One of four things will happen:

  1. Rehome to someone that wants a mantis tank
  2. Move to the sump and him scavenge the live rock rumble and chaeto, and hope he never gets sent to the big fish tank in the sky via the return pump impellers.
  3. Set up a dedicated 10g for him and throw the welks in there for his first few meals.
  4. This is a bit crazy, but just let him hang in the DT. Might sound crazy but it could be the ying to the yang of any gorilla crab that might be in there that hasn't been discovered yet. He is a smasher so my future fish should be pretty safe. Aside from nailing some occasional clean up crew snails he shouldn't really have an impact on anything. Keeping emeralds would be the biggest issue.
Click to expand...
DM me if you decide to re-home it - I'd be happy to trade you some zoas, hollywood stunner or pulsing xenia if you would be interested in any.

He could live in our toadfish tank - it's a 180 gallon tank with just our oyster toadfish - plenty of hiding spots for him.
 
drnecropolis said:
You'd be surprised how much will live through a peroxide dip.
Click to expand...

It seems to be a fairly new thing to pop up. I have not done much research I had assumed it would clear it out pretty thoroughly. I've read of people using it to dip different frags to clean up various algae. Despite the fairly reckless attitude with start up and liverock approach, I was and will be pretty serious about what makes it way in with regards to fish and coral. The use of peroxide seem pretty interesting. I saw Humble Fish is now suggesting using it alongside tank transfer to defeat pretty much everything on a fairly short 16 day-ish QT period. That opens the door to sourcing fish a little more cheaply without as much headache. Shorter time, fewer medications to source, etc.
 
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